AI War 2:Early Access Starts!

Known Issues

• The lobby interface is currently temporary, and undergoing a complete overhaul.
  • It's suggested that you use the quick start option instead.

• Various bugs on mantis: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view_all_bug_page.php

• Multiplayer is temporarily disabled while we focus on tightening up the single-player loop.

• There are a variety of ships/units that don't have final graphics at the moment, though they all have their icons.

What's this phase all about?

After 2+ years of development, we've finally reached the point where we're ready for Early Access! There's still more polish and bugfixing that we want to get done in these early weeks of EA, and the lobby redo is desperately needed (but quick starts are an awesome alternative), but we're feeling good about the game. We do need to also finish some graphics for the existing ships, but they all have their icons.

More content will be added during Early Access, but in the earliest weeks we're going to be balancing that against polishing what is there first. There's already quite a lot!

Version 0.809

(Not yet released -- we're still working on it!)

• Add two new behaviours for the AI when attacking a planet owned by the player. The likelihood of the AI doing either of these is defined as a percentage in the AI Difficulty XML. If neither of these trigger, the AI will fight as before. The new behaviours are
  • Charge the player command station with all its units
  • If outnumbered, the AI will see if there are any adjacent, player owned planets that are weaker than this planet, and if so they will send all their ships there.

• Added a bit of randomness to reinforcing AI planets. Now it prefers Fleetships (2/5 chance) and turrets (2/5 chance), then Guardians (1/5 chance). In testing, it seems to go Fleetships > Turrets > Guardians.
  • Thanks Dominus, for saving Puffin from his confusing torment.

• Added a line in the AIP tooltip that shows your AIP Floor. Hopefully that will limit confusion about the floor.

• Added some missing code for Astro Trains that may have been causing wormhole invasions to not work as intended.

• Reconquest Waves should now spawn as intended.
  • Another big thanks to Dominus and Badger for this.

• AI Hunter Fleet should no longer get stuck all the time due to a crippling fear of travelling anywhere. Hopefully.
  • Oh, and if it does attack, it doesn't retreat as easily - now matches the normal AI forces.

• Threat will now wait 15 minutes before joining the Hunter Fleet, on all difficulties.
  • Should hopefully prove to be more interesting and help with the AI aggression issues.

• Fix a bug where Dark Spire units weren't dying properly to a Ward
  • Stacked units weren't all dying to Despawn() calls; Despawn isn't used for combat death, but for 'gameplay required' deaths like HRF warping out, dark spire wards, etc...
  • This also fixes a potential multiplayer desync in Dark Spire code.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter for the bug report

• Stacked units now will split themselves if there are > 5 units in the stack and the unit has a Bad Status Effect (paralysis, engine stun, tractor beam and suchlike)
  • This should prevent status effect weapons from being such effective counters to stacked units. Having the units split no lower than 5 under those circumstances should make it not too much of a performance degradation (I hope).

• Units can no longer join a stack if they are in the middle of a battle

• Add some debugging code for a null reference in PlaySFX_ShotHitting
  • Thanks to Draco for the bug report

• Starships and Guardians now have a higher collision priority. Shielded versions have higher priority than the rest.
  • Order wise it goes: Dire Guardian/Usurper > Starships > Guardians > Fleetships.

Risk Analyzer Tweaks

• Risk Analyzers will now generate Exogalactic Strikeforces against you. As long as you don't take Risk Analyzers away from the AI then the Exos will come very slowly
• Analyzers on neutral planets will make the Exos come a bit faster, and if you control any Exos then they will come much faster.

Wormhole Invasion Tweaks

• Wormhole invasions are no longer allowed to spawn on player homeworlds.
• On difficulty < 9, wormhole invasions are not allowed to spawn on planets adjacent to a player homeworld.
• Wormhole invasions are only unlocked for difficulty >= 7,
• AIP requirements for wormhole invasions are now higher

Balance Tweaks

• Human Resistance Fighters have their budget income increased 50%, and have the maximum budget limit increased by 25%.
  • They now build faster and can send more to a fight. See how this is for now. Think they broke when automatic strength calculation upped their unit prices.

• V-Wings no longer upgrade their weapon at Mark 4, but instead simply start with it at Mark 1. Damage also increased 33%.
  • With the new AI logic of them rushing the Stations, these might finally get use! That, and the whole Mark 4 upgraded weapon thing was bugging me.

• Ambush Turrets also no longer upgrade at Mark 4, and just get the longer duration at all Marks.

• Usurpers now have a range of 9,000 on every weapon, instead of being split and really low in general, and also a noticeable health increase.
  • Testing showed them to be very suicidal, and would always be the first thing to die horribly.

• Mass Drivers and Sabots are now set up to get a bonus against higher mass, instead of a penalty to lower.
  • Not really a balance change, just in case anyone is confused why it's suddenly different. It might've been strange to read before, being the only penalty in the game. Otherwise identical.

Version 0.808 Custom Stacks

(Released December 10th, 2018)

• Tachyon stuff no longer drains cloaking while paused
  • Thanks Kesseleth and Kahuna for reporting.

• Instigators now actually attack things again! I promise!
  • Thanks to Avenger1649 for reporting the problem with my previous fix

• Macrophages no longer spawn at the beginning of the game, but wait for a while into the game
• Macrophages now have Mark Levels and will scale in strength with AIP. This makes it so they will not be super terrifying early and very weak late.

• Macrophages will now always travel to a randomly chosen Metal Generator when entering a planet, and only then will proceed to the next wormhole. This will make their movements much less predictable on a given planet.
  • I think Avenger1649 suggested this

• The Nanocaust is not allowed to frenzy at the player home world for the first hour of the game

• Units that die to remains (like Golems) can't be healed by the Regenerator Golem or trigger on-death effects like zombification

• Fix null reference exception in shot hitting code.
  • Thanks to AnnoyingOrange for the bug report

• Expose some Stacking related settings. The player can now choose how many AI units are allowed before the game starts to try stacking them. Making this number too high can result in performance issues, but 50 units (the previous default) felt much too low, and this lets a player with a stronger machine not worry about things as much.
  • Note we will need to revisit this for multiplayer since this will cause desync's
  • Thanks to Puffin, zeusalmighty and others for the discussion

• Fix a bug where Marauder Raiders weren't correctly calculating their strength when choosing to attack due to Stacking
  • Thanks to Avenger1649 for the bug report

• Fix a bug where drone producers weren't counting stacked drone units when figuring out their currently used strength cap. This could lead to huge numbers of drones being created.
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin for the bug report

• Fix a bug where drone producers would sometimes stop building drones entirely
  • Thanks to Kesseleth, Avenger1649, Super Corgi, StarKeep and probably others for reporting

• Instigator Bases and Astro Train Depots now have additional effect scaling based on the hardest Difficulty of any AI faction in the game. The effect scaling is "Low, Medium, High", and is tunable in the XML.
  • Requested by RocketAssistedPuffin

• Add an Instigator Base to boost the Wormhole Invasion budget

• You can now select any difficulty, though the lobby is still heavily under construction.

• AIP Floor now properly functions. No more cheesing it by destroying datacenters while at the floor and still benefiting.

• AIP Floor now goes up by 0.2 * Total AIP Gained. The 0.2 is moddable via ExternalConstants XML (balance_aip_floor_modifier).

• Fix a bug where the Nanocaust wasn't correctly calculating the strength for a given Nanobot Center. This was causing nanobot centers to display 0 strength in the tooltip
  • Puffing reported

Balance Tweaks

• Macrophage Harvesters now have albedo 0.4, up from 0.2
  • To make them not die immediately to Ion Cannons, now that they have Mark levels (Ions don't work on Markless). Enraged ones were already safe.

• Macrophage Harvester damage and health reduced by 25%. Enraged has the same change.
  • To tone down Mark 1 slightly.

• Thanatos only needs to be Mark 2 to use the zombifying missile weapon, instead of Mark 4.
  • Thanks to Mac for suggesting in Discord.

• MLRS Corvette damage reduced from 40 to 30.
  • Sneakily high DPS.

• MLRS Corvettes, Turrets and Guard Posts only get their "straggler" damage bonus at 20% remaining target health, down from 30%. Also only increases by 0.3x per Mark down from 2.

• Economic Command Stations increase their metal income by 400 per Mark upgrade, up from 250.
  • Never worth upgrading compared to Harvesters. See how this goes.

• Gravity Guardian damage increased from 150 to 1000.
  • Sort of useless...didn't contribute to a fight all that well.

• Carrier Guardian damage increased from 250 to 1000.
  • So the Guardian itself actually does something!

• Paralysis Guardian damage increased from 40 to 200.
  • So it does something beyond having an awkward staring match with you.

• Spider Guardian damage increased from 120 to 250.
  • Same as above.

• Nucleophilic Guardian damage increased from 305 to 1200, fires only one shot instead of four, and starts with a 4x damage bonus instead of 6x.
  • Being multishot meant it wasn't too good at attacking Starships. Damage boost in addition to make it less specialised, with compensating bonus nerf.

• Pike Guardian damage increased to 600 from 150, only fires 5 shots instead of 10.
  • Better damage focus with an increase in output.

• Nucleophilic Guard Post damage increased from 400 to 1600, one shot instead of three, 4x damage bonus instead of 3x.
  • Basically the same as the Guardian.

• Pike Guard Post damage increased from 800 to 1200, only fires 5 shots instead of 10.
  • Actually a nerf overall, but it seemed to be strangely high in the first place. Bit better at focusing targets.

• All non-Dire Guard Posts health increased 25%.

• Assault Starship damage on the Fusion weapon reduced from 4000 to 3600, damage bonus now 3x instead of 4x.
  • This thing was annihilating so many targets.

• Nearly every Fleetship has a cost reduction - mostly small, about 10%, but some are larger, generally swarmer types.
  • Caps of Fleetships were costing more than Starships, but were having to be replaced due to attrition, so actually cost far more in practice.

• Sentinel Frigate damage reduced from 300 to 270.
  • Long range universal damage is pretty good it turns out!

• Design Download hacks cost 40 Hacking Points to complete instead of 20.
  • So you can't quite as cheaply download everything the AI unlocks.

Version 0.807 Cyber Command

(Released November 27th, 2018)

• Tachyon Arrays no longer imply they should cloak at Mark 1, by talking about having 200 cloaking points when looking at upgrading them.
  • Thanks to Kaleopan for reporting.

• Quick start saves are now under the campaign the player specifies, rather than the Quick Start campaign they came from.
  • Thanks Puffin and others for pointing it out in Discord.

• Prevents ships from moving or executing any orders after death
  • Thanks to Kaleopan, HeartHunter7, and Berkobob for reporting

• Ships are now deselected on death, which should prevent ships getting stuck as selected with no way to unstick them besides reloading.
  • Thanks Puffin.

• Remains are now properly selectable and scrappable.
  • Thanks to everyone who reported this (There were a lot of people who mentioned it).

• Metal harvesters are no longer scrappable by the player.
  • Thanks RayMagini for reporting!

• Golems no longer duplicate on death.
  • Thanks Kasslerkryssi, HeartHunter7, and Kaleopan for reporting!

• The text for claiming neutral units now specifies you have to control the planet to do so - was causing confusion on how you claimed things.
  • Apologies, but I have no idea who brought this up - regardless, thank you all!

• Schematic Servers no longer collect science and self destruct on capture.
  • No point in collecting science if it blows up the moment you capture it (technically the moment you are granted the tech from it)

• Golems can no longer be captured or turned into a zombie.
  • Thanks Ignacious for reporting.

• Astro Train effects that require multiple trains to arrive will no longer trigger immediately upon the Depot spawning.
  • Very strange!

• Adds two new Astro Train effects - Spawn Dire Guardian and Boost Wormhole Invasion budget, and finally gets the Spawn Fortress one in use.

• Tractors no longer affect ships under a bubble shield
  • Thanks wm46 for suggesting

• Buildings now start at 1 hull point and 0 shields, rather than full health. They are fully operational once construction is done, but the bigger ones may not be at full health.
  • Thanks to Puffin for suggesting

• Added hotkey (Comma (,) by default) for selecting all units marked as scouts in the XML (is_scout="true") and is not a King unit, like your home command station.
  • Thanks Viss Valdyr for suggesting.

• Command stations now have 1 HP after they transform, and have a delay of 5 seconds before they can be repaired.
  • The delay is moddable in XML

• Added a popup for when you try to change command stations, since it can be pretty devastating for that to happen while under attack now.

• Fix a bug where Allied Marauders would be able to place unlimited outposts
  • Thanks to a number of people for reporting, especially Avenger1649

Hacking Tweaks

• Super Terminal hack now stops when you hit zero hacking.
  • Thanks to Danathan for reporting.

• Hacking now properly uses hack_duration in the XML.
  • Thanks to Krysmphoenix for indirectly finding this issue, and Puffin for helping with it

• Vengeance Strike Hacks no longer unleash ships during the hack, only afterwards to match up with the tooltip, and make the hack a little more sane.
  • Thanks to Krysmphoenix for reporting

• Vengeance Strike Hacks no longer drain hacking points like crazy, instead only using the amount it says they use
  • Thanks Krysmphoenix for reporting

• Hackers who are hacking can't go through wormholes anymore
  • Thanks Ovalcircle for reporting!

Visual Tweaks

• Eyebots now turn properly - were locked to rotation 0,0,0.

• Metabolizing Gangsaws are no longer enormous.

• Fair few fleetship model collisions have been fixed, and squads without y offsets now have some, for a bit more 3D effect.

• Golems are 20% larger, and the Armored has its hitbox size fixed.

• Dyson Bulwarks and Bastions are a bit larger.

• Starships now actually match Guardians in size, instead of being tiny in comparison. Some more minor hitbox fixes.

• Large ship size scaling per mark is reduced slightly at higher marks, so ships aren't becoming as large as Dires anymore.

• Tractor Guardian size reduced slightly - noticeably larger compared to its brethren.

Balance Tweaks

• Concussion Corvette base damage mulitplier decreased from 8x to 6x.

• Pike Corvette damage decreased from 40 to 20.
  • Ludicrous damage output, even without the bonus.

• Raptor cost increased from 1800 to 3000.
  • Oddity.

• Space Plane cap increased from 60 to 120.
  • Missed these - seem to work well now.

• Metabolizing Gangsaw damage increased from 150 to 400, reload time increased from 1s to 3s.
  • Meant to have been a bit snappier before, but...instead caused weirdness. So back they go. They also have, as noted above, a smaller physical size.

• AI Overlord, both phases, now have a large Tachyon system to counter cloaking cheese.
  • Cheese being slowly killing it with Raid Starships bit by bit.

• AI Overlord phase 2 now has stronger weapons, and the range is the same on all of them, so it shouldn't sit back and plink away with only the plasma cannon.

• AI Overlord phase 1 can only be damaged when all Guard Posts on its planet are destroyed.
  • Identical to the current Eye mechanic, but with no alert.

• Dire Guard Posts now increase AIP by 10 upon death.

• Dire Guard Posts have fairly noticable damage bumps.

• AI Command Stations now give only 15AIP, instead of 25.
  • Feel this was the wrong way to go for higher difficulties. The changes to Concussion/Pike Corvettes, as well as Destruction points hopefully make up for this - they seemed to be the main culprit.

• Ion Cannons now fire every 1 second, instead of 2.

• Devourer Golem damage increased from 16000 to 30000 per shot.
  • Om Nom Nom Nom.

• Destruction Point requirements have gone up drastically.
  • These were meant to be a barrier preventing late tech units from appearing until...well, really late into a long game.

• Ark Point requirements have also gone up drastically, but the science cost has went down as well.
  • Bit more experience based.

• All Arks move 50% faster, have much lower health, but now have the same target priority as Starships.
  • No more face tanking Mass Drivers for a really long time.

• Normal and Area Minefields damage increased from 2500 to 5000, self damage adjusted to compensate.
  • Still self destruct in 5 hits.

• Widow Minefields now paralyze for 3s instead of 2.

• Instigator Bases that spawn Guardians to attack you now include Fortified Tesla and Plasma Guardians.
  • Thanks to Avenger1649 and Mac for suggesting greater variety.

• Heavy Beam Guardians no longer self damage, damage reduced to compensate.
  • Were hilariously one shotting themselves, kind of making them not at all scary.

• Automated Construction Swarm units now move at speed 1000 instead of 600.
  • Short range, so bad speed was hurting them.

• Ion Eyes now fire 4 shots at a time instead of 1.
  • To make it an actual thing to be concerned with, instead of being ignored.

• War Harvester/Sieger mercenaries use 2000 energy each, instead of 7000.
  • Could put you in an energy crisis upon being hired. Less impact now.

• Remains Rebuilders now have a reasonable health value, instead of being so tanky they could scout half the galaxy for you.

• Mobile Space Dock health reduced by a fair chunk.
  • Strangely tanky things.

• Science Labs now move as fast as Hackers.
  • Found these to be annoyingly slow. Just a quality of life thing.

• Mercenary Flagships now have a mass of 4, so Sabots/Mass Drivers will no longer obliterate them. Range is also increased so they stay a bit out of the way more.
  • For the case of the group going and attacking a planet by themselves, and the lead ship being destroyed nigh instantly, thus preventing you from rehiring it. Shouldn't have to protect them like eggs.

• Raider Guardians have a similar weapon to the Fusion Bomber now.
  • Not sure what else they can get, but it's something more interesting.

• Golems and the Lost Spire Frigate now move 50% faster (200 to 300).
  • Slowpokes! Should hopefully make them a bit nicer to use.

• Armored, Regenerator and Botnet Golems have a bit longer range (5000 to 6500), so they don't have to essentially ram their targets.

• Zenith Trader speed increased (150 to 250).
  • So he gets around the galaxy a bit better.

• Dire Shredder/Tethuida Guardian/Guard Posts now spawn 15 drones of the relevant type upon death. These drones also only degrade by 20% every second, instead of 35% like other drones.

• Dire Shredder Guard Posts now spawn the correct amount of drones - it was only building a third of the count it should have.

• Player salvage increased 20%, AI salvage doubled.
  • AI may be very low still - finding it rare to ever get a reprisal, but more data required.

• Metal Harvesters cost 2,000 metal to claim instead of 10,000.
  • Quality of life thing, speeds up very early game and not much else.

• Arks have half the reload time (excluding the Thanatos zombifying missiles).

• Orchid Vampirism reduced from 5 health per 1 damage to 1 health per 1 damage.
  • DPS is doubled from the above change, so it's not as bad as it seems.

• Dire Tesla Guardians now have the same immunity to damage from beyond 2800 range as the normal version.

• Dire Tesla Guardian damage increased from 1700 to 2500.

• Tritium Sniper Guardian damage increased 120 > 180, reload time halved from 4s to 2s.

• Dire Paralysis Guardian damage tripled from 400 to 1200, also fires every shot at once.
  • Sort of pathetic?

• Grenade Launcher turret range increased from 5000 to 6500, shields increased from 11250 to 15000.
  • Thanks Kesseleth!

• Concussion Turret total health reduced from 20250 to 12500.
  • Long range turret, not quite planet range as Snipers and Spiders but fairly long, so feel like they should be something that needs protection?

• MLRS Turret total health reduced to 12500, same reasoning as above.

• Fragmenting Guardian Shard damage doubled from 400 to 800.
  • Be scary already!

• Science Labs gather at twice the rate.

• Heavy Beam Cannon turret strength value increased 33% - more expensive for the AI now.

Version 0.806 Sabre Company

(November 9th, 2018)

• Fix a bug where we were allowing the AI to over-diversify its waves. Waves are now capped at 8 different unit types
  • Thanks to Puffin for reporting

• Tutorial now teaches how to set ships in Pursuit Mode using the hotkey for it.
  • Thanks to DiamondDuty for the inspiration!

• Devourer Golem will now push Forcefields out of the way.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter7 for...uh, trying this.

• Fix a bug where some minor factions could generate unhelpful error messages after you lost a game
  • Thanks to HeartHunter for reporting

• Put a cap on the number of Marauder outposts that can spawn on allied planets
  • Thanks to Avenger1649 for suggesting

• Start work on Notifications for Instigator Bases. Probably still needs work, but arcenui keeps breaking for me so I can't really test it
  • Thanks to wm46 for the suggestion

• Instigators will consider a planet 'defeated' when they outnumber the defenses 10 to 1, and then move to the next planet on the way to the player King
  • Thanks to HeartHunter for observing a case where instigators got stuck

• Correct the description of the Superterminal to no longer request the player to capture the planet.

• Allows enter/return to confirm Yes/No popups, and close Okay popups
  • Thanks Kaleopan for reporting!

Balance Tweaks

• Tractor Arrays and Focused Gravity Generators now have cheaper tech costs.
  • Way too expensive!

• Tachyon Arrays now get cloaking at Mark 2 instead of Mark 4.
  • Not sure why you'd ever upgrade these that much.

• Pulsar Tanks, Tantruming Guardian, Dyson Bastion, Vanguard albedo increased to 0.7.
  • Make Ablative Gatlings less useless!

• Ambush Turrets now have their effect last 15s instead of 9, at Mark 4 and above.
  • Thanks to zeusalmighty for suggesting this...too long ago. Bah.

• Tethuida Guardians, Parasites, Astro Trains and the whole Nanocaust can no longer be captured by another faction.
  • While it was very amusing to have the AI steal Nanocaust ships, the Nanocaust steal it back, I steal those, etc, it has to go. Also stops the case of "to me, to you" back and forth of capturing the same unit over and over.

New Mercenary Groups

• Adds "Sabre Company" - uses Pulsar Tanks as its only unit, is hireable anywhere and can be done twice.

Version 0.805 Mercs, Hacks, and, Drones, Oh My

(Released October 30th, 2018)

• Fixed typo on performance tooltip.
  • Thanks sOvr9000 for reporting!

• Fixed Turret Schematic Servers mentioning Starships in their description.
  • Thanks to donblas for reporting!

• Allow Beam Cannons, Tractor Arrays, Gravity Turrets, and Tachyon Arrays to be built on hostile planets.
  • Thanks to AtomTheBomb for reporting!

• Sidebar now collapses when you click on a tab that is already opened.
  • Thanks darkarchon for reporting in Discord!

• Added objective for when you are below 40k energy

• Improve the tooltip for Marauder Outposts

• Science Labs, Hackers, and Space Docks no longer upgrade to Mark 2 - existing ones will degrade, unfortunately.
  • Lots of confusion - Labs and Hackers have no upgrade purpose, and Docks weren't upgraded at all. Thanks to Feudal Wulf and FFace for talking about this.

• Science Labs can no longer be built on enemy planets.
  • Lots of people thinking this meant you could get science from them - then being confused as to when it didn't work.

• Added prompt for unlocking or upgrading ships.
  • Thanks PACKRATXXXNASTY for the suggestion on Steam.

• Fixed the Quick Start Category buttons so they don't go off the screen.

Bug Fixes

• Drones should no longer idle, and will charge into glorious combat! At least, testing so far has them doing so every time, when before they just fell asleep.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter7 for reporting, and Aero182 for reporting, and guessing what the solution was, and finally Kasslerkryssi for inspiring me, with a report about Marauders, to go look at their entries, and finding the line that possibly fixed this at last.

• Drones are no longer eligible to be repaired
  • I've seen a few complaints about this but I don't remember names.

• Fix a bug where hacking Schematic Servers would not do anything
  • Reported by a lot of people

• Fix a null reference exception in Reprisal Wave code. This had a lot of nasty side effects, including making the game appear to freeze
  • Explicitly reported by T-Pond and Kaleopan, but I suspect many other people saw it, and this is potentially behind other issues people saw.

• Fix a typo on reprisal wave tooltips
  • Thanks to AtomTheBomb for reporting

• Fixes the Instigator base that spawns units never appearing - duplicate ID. You may notice some bases that said "Boost AIP" now say they'll spawn units - they will eventually, have to finish their current timer, then it'll swap to normal. Boost AIP bases can still spawn, though, and work as they should.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter7 for reporting this.

Hacking Changes

Major thanks to Badger for the heavy lifting on this!

• Hacking response is now based only on how many hacking points you've used against a given faction, not AIP.

• Each AI difficulty level has a different base response strength - higher the difficulty, the more the AI will send against you during hacks.

• Every hack, other than Science Extraction and the Super Terminal take more time to do, with the Decode Nanobots taking a full 10 minutes.

• All hacks now send a more or less constant stream of small responses at you, with the occasional larger response, very similar to what was used previously.

• The Super Terminal now increases its response over time, so you can't hold it forever.

• Design Backup hacks now have proper responses as well.

Balance Tweaks

• Vampire Guardian health leech halved.

• Assault Starship now has a secondary weapon, "Point Defense", which is a 3s reload, 8 shots per salvo weapon, dealing 800 damage per shot.

• Warbird Starship damage doubled from 200 to 400 per shot.

• Tritium Sniper Starship railgun damage increased from 330 to 495, reload time reduced from 4s to 2s.

• Siege Starship now damages up to 10 targets per shot instead of 5, and explosion size increased from 500 to 600.
  • Thanks to APhoenixSoaring for asking the question "What's the point of Starships?", zeusalmighty and Kesseleth for feedback on Discord on changes related to every Starship mention here.

• Human and AI Raid Starships shield points reduced from 40k to 30k.

• AI units should now give half the energy they used to when being killed by the Dark Spire.

• Metabolizing Gangsaw speed increased from 1200 to 1600, damage reduced from 350 to 150, reload time decreased from 3s to 1s, cap increased from 60 to 120, energy cost down from 500 to 350, self damage amount halved.

• Metabolization death effect now gives 20% of the targets cost, up to a maximum of 5,000 metal, up from 10%.

• V-Wing range increased from 3800 to 4200.

• All AI related hacks now send less frequent responses, generally about half, to a third as many.
  • Possibly overkill, but given the horror stories...

• Adds a short range Tachyon system to Marauder Raiders - currently they have no means of detecting AI cloaked ships hiding on a planet, and thus wouldn't actually capture it. Hopefully this means as they attack, they'll happen to snag any.
  • Thanks to Kasslerkryssi for reporting the baffled Marauders.

• Spire Lost Frigate hull increased from 150k to 500k, shields from 450k to 750k, Beam Damage increased from 3000 to 5000.
  • Thanks to mrmud for suggesting this thing get a boost.

• All time based mercenaries last 20 minutes instead of 10, with the below exception.

• Xenophon no longer has the behaviour of warping out after a battle, and instead simply brings a much larger group, that leaves after 10 minutes.

• All mercenary groups have different starting strengths and scaling with AIP. The character themed ones in particular are much stronger initially, often doubling or more.

• All "Automated" groups, both "War" groups, and Anvil Securities cost 5 hacking points to hire.

• War Siegers and War Harvesters have had major weapon upgrades.

• Anvil Securities can no longer be hired on AI held planets.
  • Thanks to Lord of Nothing for noticing this.

• Nucleophilic Turrets fire 1 shot instead of 3, but damage per shot tripled. Base damage multiplier increased from 3x to 4x.

• Dark Spire units have their strength values at least doubled - one tripled, one quadripled - so less should spawn.
  • An unfortunate consequence of the pre-Early Access automatic strength calculation - made the Dark Spire have really cheap as chips ships.

• V-Wing damage increased by 50%.
  • To be an actual fighter, instead of an ankle biter.

• Ablative Gatling damage doubled, but base multiplier halved to 5x, and only gains 1x per mark.
  • To make them still nasty vs their preferred targets, but not quite as useless otherwise.

• Dire Paralysis Guardian now only tractors things with albedo less than 0.4, instead of 0.5.
  • Thing seemed to prioritise Starships, making it incredibly frustrating to ever fight. Now it can't tractor them.

• Tethuida and Shredder drones speed increased from 1200 to 1600, damage doubled on both.
  • Sorta wimpy, hardly did anything.

• Carrier Guardians starting build rate reduced from 2500 to 1500.
  • Meaning they rebuild their drones slower - a group of these was a bit...absurd?

• Space Tank is now called the Pulsar Tank, is now cap 30, stats adjusted accordingly (twice as much health, damage, etc), Augmented weapon has a dramatic damage increase.

• Armor Ship is now called the Vanguard, and has the same treatment as above in being cap 30, twice the health, damage, etc.

• Etherjet loses cloaking entirely (for now), damage increased from 12 to 30, weapon range is drastically increased.
  • These are meant to tractor while cloaked, but until that functionality can be put in, they'll be like this for now.

• Normal Minefields are available for free at game start, instead of being unlocked.

• Normal Minefields lost their damage multiplier, health decreased to 2500, self damage multiplier is now -0.2.
  • So they'll self destruct in 5 hits still, but won't be as...tanky, when detected. The AI was getting stuck. Multiplier was also causing weird things with their self destruction.

• Area Minefields lost their multiplier as well, damage up to 2500 per hit, now spreads damage evenly among all targets in range, health decreased to 2500, self damage multiplier also -0.2.
  • Similar to the normal - except these were killing themselves near instantly, due to some hidden change in self damage with multi-shot salvos, I think. Same thing with the self destruction.

• Widow Minefields health increased to 2500 to match the others, now spreads damage evenly among all targets in range, self damage multiplier is now -5.

• All Minefields cost 1000 metal, down from 3000.
  • Metal Status: Depleted.

• A bunch of AI non-combat structures, like Wormhole Sentinels, now have insignificant strength values, while Ion Cannons are drastically reduced.
  • Meant to help factions decide to attack, instead of being partially scared off from things that can't fight back, as well as players not overestimate how strong a planet is.

• Economic and Military Command Stations have increased salvage percentage, going up to 5% per Mark for Economic, and 4% for Military.
  • They are now like their Classic incarnations.

• Player salvage income is increased...to 1000% of current. Because really, destroying thousands of ships and you only get 31 metal per second? On the Homeworld?!
  • This might not even be enough.

• The amount of strength the Nanocaust can add to a Frenzy, that is given by holding planets, is increased to 400%.
  • So essentially, it would have about 1 strength it could send in a frenzy, for every planet it held. This...meant after the initial attack, it would fizzle out as it could never actually take over anything if the planets were higher Marks. Now, it has 4 strength for each planet it holds that it can decide to send.

• Instigator bases have had their scaling with AIP generally doubled, with one being tripled. The base that gives AIP now gives 1, but every 450s instead.
  • These were being ignored. Conservative for now...

• Astro Trains have had their scaling with AIP also generally doubled, with some having their flat, non scaling effect amount bumped up a fair bit.
  • Rare to have one actually complete its effect - should be more...well, noticeable.

• Macrophage Harvesters now move at speed 200 instead of 150, and will go to feed their telium the metal they have collected, at 7500 instead of 10000.
  • Just to help them actually harvest - they always seemed to die long before returning once. Enraged Harvesters are still speed 150 though.

• All Drones now self attrition without their parent being on the same planet, at a rate of 35% per second, instead of 1%.
  • So now when you move Carriers from planet to planet, the drones'll actually die so the Carrier can build them on the next planet. Also, sniping Carrier Guardians is an actual thing, as their drones'll die very quickly.

• Rorqual Hegira, Shield Generators and Shield Starships have their shield size increased from 1.3 to 2.
  • Not able to protect much. Also means you can now cover the Command Station AND the Energy Collector reasonably!

Version 0.804 Hack Me Quickly

(Released October 17th, 2018)

• Fixed a bug caused by typo in the prior version that led to the brand new attack-move interface button actually turning on and off pursuit mode instead of attack-move. Blah! The hotkey for it works fine, and the highlighting for the buttons is also correct (showing which mode is active). The button simply activates the wrong ability, though.
  • Thanks to Viss Valdyr, VentoreX, and Segolia for reporting.

• The various bugs with tooltips getting stuck to the mouse cursor should be well and truly gone now.
  • These were a regression based on some code we introduced to try to stop a flicker that tooltips had pre-EA, but then we found the true cause of the flicker and it was something else. Now we've taken the code back out that didn't help the flicker, but did cause the tooltip-sticking, and so all should be well now.
  • Thanks to Phantazmagor, rkfg, and others for reporting.

Game Speed Options

• The default simulation speed controls are now able to make the simulation speed go into slow motion (below 1), unlike before. It can go down to half speed, now.
  • Thanks to Bou for inspiring this change.

• Instead of having the second, confusing speed setting that made the game run slower if you used it, we've now introduced new "Game Speed Styles," which is kind of like something we had in the first AI War.
  • The controls for setting these are the same as it was to set the old confusing speed setting (hold ctrl and click the arrows by the clock, or use ctrl and plus or minus).
  • The settings are defined in xml here, so you can define your own custom ones if you want. The default ones are:
    • Epic (0.6x attack power, 0.6x ship move speed)
    • Stately Ships (1x attack power, 0.6x ship move speed)
    • Slower Battles (0.6x attack power, 1x ship move speed)
    • Default (normal stats)
    • Faster Ships (1x attack power, 2x ship move speed)
    • Faster Battles (2x attack power, 1.3x ship move speed)
    • Cheetah (2x attack power, 3x ship move speed)
    • Insane (3x attack power, 5x ship move speed)
    • Plaid (4x attack power, 8x ship move speed)
  • Thanks to Bou for inspiring this change.

• In the tooltip for the clock in the bottom left, it now explains what the red number means when there is too much load. It also now shows what the Game Speed Style is, and if there is fast-forwarding or slow-motion going on.
  • Thanks to Bobtree for suggesting.

Balance Tweaks

• Sabot and Dire Sabot Guard Posts range reduced from 18,000 to 10,100.
  • Overlapping with Mass Drivers.

• Both Human and AI Fortresses have 150k Hull health at Mark 1, and minor damage increase of 20%.

• All AI responding hacks have a 5th of the response, both on interval and in completion.
  • Thanks to Deo and AtomTheBomb for reporting, and likely others.

• Tractor and Gravity Guardians now have Tachyon Emitters whose range matches that of their other effects, but is otherwise the same as the Sentinels found at Wormholes. Range of the Tractor Guardians...er, Tractor, increased to match its gun so it actually grabs stuff without having to hug it, but only grabs 60 ships, down from 90.

Version 0.803 The New Attack-Move

(Released October 16th, 2018)

Clarity

• Added a note to the tutorial that explains to use the galaxy map to send movement orders to planets that are not next door.
  • Thanks to Yindiram the FaerieDragon for inspiring this change.

• When you build a command station on a planet, it now takes you out of the build command station mode, and won't let you enter back into it.
  • Thanks to Ovalcircle for reporting the confusion this could cause.

Control/Interface Additions

• The text and icons on the galaxy map intentionally hide themselves after a certain amount of zooming-out. Previously, it felt like they were disappearing a little bit too soon; so now it allows them to keep showing for 1.5x as far out in zoom.
  • That said, you can also now configure that to make them disappear even faster, or last even longer, or go back to how they were last release, using two new options at the top of the Galaxy Camera section of the settings menu.
  • Thanks to Tzarro for suggesting.

• Previously, the planet tooltips in the galaxy map were only showing the amount of metal and energy you were producing at them, and only showing that if you held ctrl to see the full text for that planet.
  • NOW it shows the total amount of metal or energy generation happening on the planet, regardless of whether or not you own them. This shows you capture opportunities, aka which planets have more metal to capture or where there is a giant energy source to capture, etc.
  • On your own planets it continues to hide those by default unless you press ctrl, but on planets you don't own it will show them so long as their values aren't zero.
  • Thanks to Viss Valdyr for suggesting.

• Holding the ctrl key while clicking to build units such as turrets now works like it did in the first game, and builds 5 at a time.
  • Thanks to Wegadin and Dbrn for suggesting.

• In the tooltips over player ships, you can now see if they are in group-move, stop-to-shoot, or pursuit modes.

• All ships can now be in any combination of group-move, stop-to-shoot, and pursuit mode.
  • This is more like the first game, and has a variety of useful purposes.
  • Thanks to Terrarius for suggesting.

• Added a new "Attack-Move" mode:
  • While in attack-move mode, military ships will make their own choices about who to go attack that they see in range of themselves, and then will kite them and potentially chase them. Unlike in pursuit mode, they will not start chasing something that is out of their range, however.
  • There is a new button for this in the interface, or you can press the X key. The older "stop-and-shoot" mode is still useful, but has been moved to the C key.
  • This is actually a pleasingly sophisticated hybrid new mode that hasn't previously existed in this game or the original game.
  • Thanks to Terrarius for inspiring this addition!

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug where the hacking sidebar would show you the available hacks on planets you hadn't yet explored (so you could tell if, say, there was a Schematic Server there)
  • Thanks to Regdren for reporting

• Fixed an issue where, on startup, the game was connecting to unity's servers to submit anonymous hardware statistics.
  • Apologies for that, as we didn't notice it. We have those servers whitelisted in our own firewalls, so it slipped completely past.
  • More info: https://forum.unity.com/threads/turn-off-hardware-stat-collection-from-unity.467751/
  • Thanks to lonetrav and Demerzel for bringing this to our attention.

• Fixed a surprising bug with the "start with units queued" option in the lobby that was making it impossible to ever de-queue those units!
  • Thanks to Epic The Incandescent for reporting.

• Put in a further fix to prevent tooltips from ever getting stuck to your mouse cursor.
  • Thanks to rkfg and Phantazmagor for reporting the issue.

• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to save your game during the tutorial! It did not have a campaign name. Now it saves under the campaign name "Tutorial."
  • Thanks to nnothead31 and UFO for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where hold fire mode made ships unable to re-cloak!
  • Thanks to Crisp for reporting.

Balance Tweaks

• Hacking Points gained per planet now 30, down from 40.

• AIP gained per destroyed Command Station now 25, up from 15.

• Ambush Turrets cap increased from 10 to 30, cost and health reduced accordingly. Base damage reduced to be more in line with some other turrets, making them worse generalists, but the bonus is increased to keep them similar. Range also reduced to 5600.

Version 0.802 Hold Your Fire!

(Released October 15th, 2018)

• Allow multiple space docks to be handled by the tutorial.

• Add a 'build energy collector' requirement to the Tutorial, and mention that you can use Settings -> Automation for it.

• Increase both AI and player Salvage income.

• Fixed an issue introduced in todays earlier hotfix that caused unit placement to be annoyingly slow (you could only click 3x per second at most).
  • Thanks to Mckloshiv, RocketAssistedPuffin, ZEBEAST OF SLAVIC TERRITORIES, and la_nague for reporting.

• Fixed a bug that was causing the keybindings to not be properly saved/applied when you changed them through the game.
  • Thanks to Mitvailer and la_nague for reporting.

• Added the "hold fire" mode that folks have definitely been missing! Aka, "Toggle Ship Systems Enabled"
  • Press the N key to enable it, by default.
  • Switch the selected ships into or out of functioning. While disabled, military ships will not attack anything they see. This is very useful for ships that are cloaked that you want to keep stealthy. When disabled, engineers will not spend metal doing work, and space docks will not run, etc.
  • Thanks to Ovalcircle, zeusalmighty, HeartHunter7, RocketAssistedPuffin, and la_nague for reminding us about this.

Version 0.801 Hotfix

(Released October 15th, 2018)

• Fixed all our menus with lists of items being broken by a last-minute change prior to 0.800. Very sorry about that! It was most noticeable on the Objectives screen.
  • Thanks to pango and la_nague for reporting.

• Fixed the longstanding issue with double-clicking units not working properly unless shift was held. This was a casualty of our switching input systems back in July.
  • Thanks to Kahuna, BadgerBadger, RocketAssistedPuffin, vinco, and la_nague for reporting.

Version 0.800 Early Access Launch

(Released October 15th, 2018)

• Settings and controls categories no longer run off screen

Tutorial Tweaks

• Added a note to the tutorial that each dock can rally separately.
  • Thanks to th_Pion for reporting, and Sizzle for transcribing.

• If your assault starship dies during your attack on the third planet in the tutorial, it should no longer take you back to the prompt that asks you to build one.
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin for reporting.

• Added in the usual starting 2 human home settlements, and 10 human cryo pods, for an extra 560 metal per second and 50k energy during the tutorial.
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin for suggesting.

• Added in the standard two engineers right from the start of the tutorial, so that building the first engineers isn't extra slow.

• The tutorial now has a nicely colored header, which also says what step you are on out of the total number of steps.
  • This is useful for making it clear that you're in the tutorial, and how far in you are.

• Additionally, when you complete the tutorial it now has a nice message telling you so, and advice on what to do next (start a Quick Start game, don't stress, etc).
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin, th_Pion, Sizzle, and Josh Bycer for suggesting.

• In the window that shows the tutorial information, there is now an "Other Notes" section down at the bottom that shows any other notes that are popping up into that usual window.
  • Thanks to Bobtree and Badger for pointing out how confusing this was.

• If the game is paused, colored text saying so now shows up in the tutorial.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Astro Train Stations would spawn without limit.

• Fixed a bug that we introduced in the last build that would occasionally lead to a tooltip getting stuck to your cursor.
  • Thanks to vinco for reporting.

• Fixed an issue introduced in the prior build where it was now basically impossible to tell the difference between dock items in your queue and not in your queue.
  • Thanks to Badger for reporting.

Prior Release Notes

AI War 2: Pre-Early Access Polish